


What You Started

by atamascolily



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Meddling Force Ghosts (Star Wars), Skywalker Family Feels (Star Wars), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28784160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: On the ruins of the second Death Star, Ben Solo confronts the ghosts of his past--and finds an unexpected path forward.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	What You Started

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a thing I ever imagined writing, but it's an excerpt from a larger work--a bare-bones re-working of Episode IX called _Balance of Fate_. I will probably never write the whole thing in full, but I like how this particular scene turned out.

"You can do it, you know," his uncle's disembodied voice whispered gently in his ear.

"What?"

"Finish what we started," said an unfamiliar voice. 

He jerked up off the deck, startled--only to stop short, his mouth falling open in astonishment. Standing next to the shimmering form of his uncle's ghost, was an older man wrapped in that same ethereal haze. His face was worn and lined with care, but there was something in his warm smile and the familiar way his hand reached out out to lovingly squeeze Luke's shoulder that there was no mistaking the connection between them.

"Grandfather," Kylo gasped. No. No. He was Ben again, now and forevermore. He'd thrown that other name away when he'd tossed his damaged lightsaber into the sea.

Salt spray splashed across his face from the churning waves. He wiped the droplets away roughly with a dark-gloved hand, only to realize at the last moment that they were tears. When had he started crying? He'd been so scared to cry, so afraid of showing any weakness lest Snoke humiliate him--and now here he stood in front of two of his childhood heroes, and didn't even care they witnessed the tears.

"I won't disappoint you," he whispered, the words barely audible over the crashing surf.

"I know," Anakin Skywalker said, and vanished.

Ben slumped back to the ground and sobbed--for his father, for his mother, for his uncle, for all the friends he'd spurned and turned away from, for all the lost opportunities and roads not taken. For the innocent lives he'd taken with his own hands, and the awful, terrible waste of it all, when he could have been building something beautiful and wondrous in its place.

When he quieted, Luke was still there, watching over him in silence. He cleared his throat to get his nephew's attention. "Your mother gave me her lightsaber for safekeeping when you were born. She would want you to have it. It's hidden in my old hut on Ahch-To.”

Ben's mouth was dry. Of course he wasn't done yet. He had to help Rey in the fight against the resurrected Emperor Palpatine. It was the only way to make amends now--and for that, he needed a weapon. But--

"How can I get there?" he asked, gesturing around at the wreckage. "The scavenger--she took my fighter."

Luke smiled. "You'll find a way," he said, chuckling, as he, too, vanished into nothingness--

\--only to be replaced by the screaming whine of the _Millennium Falcon_ as it hurtled towards Ben at top speed, weaving over the waves as if its pilot were drunk or insane or both at once. The freighter whipped past an open-mouthed Ben, so close his hair blew back away from his face, and screeched to a halt in mid-air--only to land delicately on the same hunk of debris where his TIE Silencer had so recently stood.

A distressingly familiar face popped out of the top hatch--followed seconds later by a less familiar one with a blaster pointed directly at him.

"Hey, there," ex-Stormtrooper FN-2187 said with a jaunty wave. "You look like you could use a lift."

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious what the rest of _Balance of Fate_ would look like, check out the outline and associating meta [here](https://atamascolily.dreamwidth.org/14883.html).


End file.
